1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an external air bag that is disposed in the front part of a vehicle to be expanded before a collision of a vehicle body with a front obstacle, thereby absorbing collision energy.
2. Description of Related Art
Up to the present, expansion of vehicle air bags has been focused to air bags that are disposed inside vehicles (hereinafter, referred to as “internal air bags”) in order to generally decrease the degree of injury to occupants when the occupants collide with a vehicle body or rigid interior parts. Examples include a driver's side air bag, an air bag in a seat next to the driver, a curtain air bag, a seat side air bag, and the like.
Recently, the approaches that are becoming popular are intended to decrease an impact to a vehicle itself when the vehicle collides with an obstacle.
One of them is an external air bag, which is disposed behind a bumper in a space between the bumper and a vehicle body in order to expand forwards before the vehicle body collides with an obstacle, thereby absorbing and decreasing the impact.
However, up to the present, particular techniques regarding a structure for mounting an external air bag are unsatisfactory. In addition, packages in which the external air bag is mass produced and mounted on vehicles have not been taken under consideration.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.